Differentiation and sociospatial fragmentation: the city-country contradiction as a theory and as a method

Abstract

The possible overcoming of the contradiction between country and city is analyzed here as a tendency to spatial differentiation, as a result of the geography of capitalism in crisis, and as a novel element in the current relations between space and society, mediated by sociospatial fragmentation. First, the main contributions that have analyzed this contradiction are explored, establishing their conceptual limits. Second, planetary urbanization is proposed as the theoretical development of the country-city contradiction, and differential urbanization as its method to ultimately empiricize it. Finally, the relations between spatial differentiation, socio-spatial fragmentation and the country-city contradiction are defined as the increasingly relevant variables of the present social change.

Keywords:
Differentiation; Sociospatial fragmentation; City-country contradiction